By the middle of the summer, Redbox will be closing its call center in Downers Grove, Illinois. The closure will eliminate 200 jobs—about 8% of the company’s total workforce. Redbox has already begun outsourcing its call center operations to a third-party provider with locations in Texas and Canada.

Redbox said the following in a succinct statement:

“After considering a number of options, it was determined that using a third party to manage our customer service operations was the best business decision for the company,”

Judging by the commentary attached to the story on the Chicago Business website, locals are understandably upset about the outsourcing of 200 jobs to another state and country. What is unclear about this development is whether it is just a standard cost-cutting measure by Redbox or if it is a direct result of the company’s recently slimmed margins.

Let us know if you think these layoffs at Redbox are just an anomaly or if they are a harbinger of more cost- and/or personnel-cutting measures from the kiosk giant.

This company is preparing for a sale. It has already secured the Time Warner distribution and said that would RAISE margins. Would normally say this company was going to do a spin-off but there that doesn’t make sense.

THUS, THE PRIVATE EQUITY GUYS ARE CIRCLING AND THE NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM IS GOING FOR TOP DOLLAR!

Nevertheless, I’m sad about the layoffs however it sounds like a wash for the US economy. Truth be told, I’ve called that website before and was very surprised to hear they had people working out of a Chicago call center. BTW, NCR uses an Atlanta, GA call center.

I can deal with downsizing, I can deal with outsourcing – but the minute you outsource outside the country you are established in – you loose my business forever. If you need to take it cheaper within the US – I am okay with it. Take it to India or the Phillipines – I will work on tweeting you guys out of business.

I am currently out of work in high tech for 15 months because of outsourcing and so are dozens of my computer literate friends. We have lots of time to Tweet and FB about issues.

They are taking it cheaper within the US – to Texas. And apparently, some jobs are also going to Canada. No mention of India or the Philippines at all.

From my perspective, though, I have no problem with companies outsourcing to other countries as long as the customer experience is good. For call centers, outsourcing to other countries where English is not the native language is often a problem due to people not understanding accents well. For tech jobs, though, outsourcing makes a lot of sense because there are fewer customer-facing employees. For workers like programmers it is especially effective as long as time-zone issues can be solved.

All the best in your job search, though. Being out of work is always tough.

I have a problem with any American companies outsourcing. Have you ever tried to call there service numbers when they are in foreign countries. You can not understand a word they say because they do not speck ENGLISH!!!! Also give Americans their jobs back. So many of us are out of work because of so called downsizing, outsourcing or what ever other reasons they say.It is time to start putting America first again and not LAST!!!!

Really Redbox???! I mean lets give all of our American jobs away…well no more $1 bills for you…I think Blockbuster looks like the better option. I am sick of companies trying to make a quarter instead of a dime off of outsourcing! Take care of our own first!

I’m just about done with Redbox and I am ready to just switch to Netflix streaming once and for all. The way I figure it I’m spending close to $8 at Redbox a month anyways so I might as well just get the $8 Netflix plan.

Sure Netflix streaming may not have all the latest/greatest movies but from what I’ve heard there is more than enough to keep most folks happy. Besides, I can always use Redbox as a backup if there’s a movie I really want to see. Another option is to upgrade my Netflix plan so that I can stream and still get one DVD via mail.

Absolutely…it’s very easy to ‘sell’ off a CSCenter to another in state 3rd party…and then THAT company has a contract to outsource to Philippines/India for cheaper labor. It makes the company selling (Redbox) in this case – look good.

I have used the call center a # of times due to DVD’s that will not play. The folks servicing the individual RedBoxes in my area seem to never spend the time to look at DVD’s, clean them or send them in due to obviously scratches and other wise damaged Discs. I stood right there watching a machine recently get serviced and DVD’s pulled. Mine that I was told was marked for pulling by CS due to it would not play, was in that machine. I had returned it the night before…but in talking to the person servicing the machine, they had no record it needed to be pulled or even looked at.

Ditto the comments above about RB getting ready for a sale. Also part of this is $1 was to cheap to begin with. It’s a need to raise the price to make the kind of profit they want or outsource parts of the company. Just wait…sales will go down after these movie companies make more and more deals that RB cannot rent new releases for X weeks to help force the dying sales of DVD releases. No one is thinking that most folks never do by DVD’s but for maybe a few. We don’t have room…been there, done that. Also if you are into a library of DVD’s…very few are buying them on release. Just look at the HUGE cut all retailers have made on stock available of NEW DVD releases for sale. They don’t sell well – regardless of if RB is in business of rentals for $1 or not. We all have learned what we will and will not spend our $ on…and for most, it’s not buying new CD’s on release but for maybe 1 or 2 a year if even that. How many of us have learned that one by need to toss out old technology for new incoming?

Coinstar is to blame…. they are doing the same things to their employees as to cut the labor costs and overwork their technicians… also coinstar just layed off their customer service dept 8 months ago… and outsourced as well…. well being the owners of redbox…. wouldnt suprise me one bit…..yet their quarterly stats including coinstar and redbox …are outstanding! how is this…. I lost my job w/ coinstar a couple of months ago…. they tried to railroad me why I was being fired …only to find out diff from an inside source. :)

Well I see it this way and I have been watching for a while. With the long arbitration between the “Big Hollywood 3” over rentals and then the 28 day window Red may be wanting to sell and now is high time to part with RedBox. Coinstar was on to something when redbox was started. It is still viable,but the company will start to seeing those millions of customers stop thinking “What the hell it’s only a buck and start thinking I can’t afford this with kids in school,husband & wife laid off etc… etc…

To be brief, sad about the jobs loss, serves the employees right for how badly they took calls… did you ever sit and wait 9 minutes for someone to answer, only to be treated like YOU darned interrupt them? They were continuously not answering phones or resolving issues. Oh and to be straight, a big F in the A of Redbox for selling out to Warner and jobs to Canada.

This whole thing was a sweet little business while it lasted, but now it’s all Corp Sellouts!

It’s sad how far redbox has traveled in the time since Coinstar bought them outright. Widespread and politicized layoffs at HQ in Oakbrook, rock-bottom morale with the Field Staff who are overworked and made to believe that the difficult pace they’re expected to maintain will be relieved soon, and now the entire dismantling of the call center.

Redbox used to be a place that had high morale, employee-centric values, and a community and spirit amongst its employees that centered around ‘working hard and doing-the-right-thing’. That seems to have disappeared. Had you asked me when I was ‘optimized’ out of my role at redbox whether or not I was glad to be gone I certainly would have said “no.” Looking in the rearview mirror I’m glad I’m no longer part of that organization. Shame on Coinstar, shame on redbox.

Glad that “The Hoff” spoke the truth about Redbox and what is actually going on. It is not a secret, just low or no communication as Coinstar probably is riding on the formerly good reputation of Redbox. The call center place is not the only thing that the Coinstar people took out. There were others who got laid off so this is not the first round and maybe not even the second or third. It is quite apparent that Coinstar does not appreciate what they got so there will be more slash and burn activity. Usually when one downsizing happens, several follow. Shame, shame, shame.

I met someone at a networking event who worked there and was very devoted and worked very hard at helping with all of the growth the company once had. This person lost their job for no valid reason and was a good employee and very well-respected. I checked out their network and they were worth their reputation in gold! My conversation with this person left me with such a great impression so when I saw this post, I felt that I needed to speak out.

Sadly, this employee was given some fancy excuse but the real story was that it was because of the company getting purchased by Coinstar and they wanted to put their people in place and make them happy and there was some schmoozing and politics at the top. It was quite shocking to hear about after I kept seeing those kiosks all over the place and in different parts of the country as I travel for my financial business. I could not understand how a growing company would get rid of people. Now I am seeing a disturbing trend.

I did a bit of research and checked around my investing network. I found out that Coinstar has done this in the past with their employees and companies they buy. They chop up companies when they get them without putting much thought into it and later regret their errors but don’t seem to learn from them.

I stopped renting from Redbox and now go to BlockBuster and get Netflix. I have no problems, no issues and know that I am not supporting a company that makes poor decisions and puts people out on the street. Shame on you Coinstar.

Sorry if anyone lost their job but it’s hard to criticize Coinstar with your logic. When Netflix automated its DVD processing much more than 200 were let go. And blockbuster is laying off thousands as it closes stores. Redbox is keeping it’s costs low so they can keep renting DVDs for a buck.

It’s really sad that 8% of the employees are gonna get fired. I just remember the words from the film “Up In the Air”.
Major markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina are reaching maturity in terms of quality of service (QoS) and infrastructure, the competition is fierce in developing markets.

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